The Dream of the Broken Horses (18 page)

An interesting perception, making me glad Pam came along.

We stroll down to the pool. It's a big, old-style turquoise-bottomed rectangle lined up lengthwise with the lake, framed by Moorish tiles. There's a pool house with cupola built in fantasy Arabian style, with a portico that protects a line of bar stools and an exterior bar.

Pam savors the setting. "Those Fulraine boys had it good. Gorgeous house, servants, private tennis court, coach, and pool. For them this must have been a paradise."

She turns to me. "I suppose with the boys away at camp, there was no excuse to have Tom over anymore. The servants might talk. Andrew could use them against her at the custody hearing. So she decided they should meet at the motel and made the best of it, turning it into something romantic and dangerous." Pam pauses. "But still I think if she was into danger, she could have courted it in other ways. The motel was too drab to keep her excited. She needed more. I think they did other things, David. Extraordinary things. She was too stylish to be satisfied with just the tacky, old Flamingo Court."

I like her approach, though I can't imagine what kind of other extraordinary things they might have done.

As we walk back up the slope to my car, I try to remember my departure from Mark's tenth birthday party, whether it was Mom or Dad who picked me up.

If it was Dad, then Barbara may have met him before that Parents Day at Hayes. But then I think it was probably some other kid's parents who took me home.

P
am wants to take another look at the Flamingo, see it in hard daylight, she says. She clocks the drive. As we pull into the motel lot, she tells me it has taken just nine minutes to get here from the Fulraine house.

"This time I want to see the room," she says.

At the pool, I spot the same woman and kids who were hanging around when I visited two weeks ago. The woman's wearing the same yellow bikini and sunning herself on the same orange strap chaise and the kids are splashing around the shallow end as before.

As we walk into the courtyard the woman looks up, pulls off her sunglasses, is about to speak, then apparently recognizes me and settles back.

"She's the owner-manager," I whisper to Pam. "Her dad ran the place at the time of the killings. When I came by before, she gave me the once-over like I was some kind of ghoulish crime buff come to jerk off in the murder room."

"Well, you are ghoulish," Pam says.

Johnny
 
Powell's on duty in the office, and, just as before, his geezer's eyes are riveted to a baseball game on the lobby TV.

"Howdy," he says, looking up. "I figured you'd be back."

"Johnny, this is Pam Wells."

"Howdy, Pam. Here to check out old two-oh-one?"

When I nod, he slaps the key down on the counter. Then he looks at me and squints. "Someone's been around asking about you, Mr. Weiss."

Pam and I exchange a look.

"Who?"

"A fella. Didn't give his name. Seemed like a cop, but didn't show me a badge or nothin."

"What did he want?"

"Asked whether I'd seen you. Said your name then showed me your picture. When I shrugged, he flashed the inside of his palm to show me a folded fifty-dollar bill. Being in the motel business, I know better than to talk about other people's business. I told him I didn't know fifty bucks worth of nothin' and to please leave me alone so I could do my work."

"Then what?"

"He smiled like he understood it was going to take more than fifty to open
me
up. Then he irked me, started calling me 'old-timer,' like 'He went to 201, didn't he, old-timer? Asked a lot of questions about the old days? Yeah, I figured that. What I want to know is what kinda questions and how much time did he
spend
up there in the room?' "

"That's an odd thing to ask."

"I thought so. When I told him to get lost, he winked at me like he was onto me somehow. 'You'll talk to me yet, old-timer,' he said. Then he turned and shuffled out."

I thank Johnny for keeping my confidence, tip him fifty bucks to make up for what he lost on my account, and ask him to please call me if the nosy guy comes around again.

I feel Ms. Evan's eyes on us as we move across the courtyard. When we're up on the balcony, I glance down. She's got her dark glasses back on, but I can tell she's still watching. She smiles slightly and I smile back.

Pam unlocks the door, hesitates, then walks in. I glance back at Ms. Evans. Though I can't read her eyes, I sense the intensity of her gaze by the set of her mouth and the erect position of her head. She sits still as if interested to observe what I'll do next, whether I'll enter swiftly or with trepidation. There's a moment between us as if each is daring the other to look away, broken by the shrill cry of one of her kids.

"Hey, Mom! Watch this!" the smaller boy shouts, taking a running cannonball leap into the middle of the pool.

I find Pam inside seated on the bed.

After a long silence, she ventures an opinion: "It's just so ordinary." She glances at me. "Or is it, David? Do you feel something weird?"

"I did before, probably because I was alone and I'd done a lot of imagining about this room. I think I'll leave you here a while, give you a chance to take in the vibes."

Pam nods, then starts studying her reflection in the big mirror above the dresser. I quietly slip out, close the door, then lean over the exterior balcony. Ms. Evans, sensing my presence again, looks up at me from her chaise. Again I meet her sunglass-shielded eyes.

Obviously something's on her mind. I nod to her, move quickly to the staircase, descend, then stride over to where she's lying. To my surprise, she doesn't react or sit up, rather continues to lie back as if expecting the intrusion.

"Pardon me—I'm David Weiss," I tell her, crouching beside her, extending my hand.

"I know. I'm Kate Evans."

We shake, then she invites me to sit on the adjacent chaise.

"I couldn't help but notice you've been checking me out."

She smiles slightly. "The other day I asked Johnny who you were. It's been years since anyone asked to see the murder room."

She reaches into her pool bag, pulls out a pack of L&Ms and an elegant, thin, gold lighter. She takes her time lighting up, inhales deeply, then exhales in a long, steady plume that hangs like the exhaust trail of a jet in the still, humid air.

"I saw him, you know—the man who did the shooting, saw him clear for a second or two. Then for a long time I saw him in my dreams, not every night or anything like that—maybe two, three times a year for. . .six, seven years. Scary dreams." She exhales again. "Kinda dreams you wish you could forget."

She points to her boys. "Me and another kid were playing here, splashing around like them. Then suddenly —BOOM!BOOM! BOOM!BOOM!" She smiles, takes another long drag from her cigarette, then crushes it out against the concrete beneath her chaise. "He came running down the stairs, then he saw us. That's when our eyes met." She smiles slightly again. "It was like . . . we locked. Then he scooted off under the archway and out into the street. I told the cops I saw him. They were nice, asked me to describe him. I did, but then they never showed me any suspect pictures or anything like that."

I feel a surge of excitement bolting through my body.

She saw the shooter! Even after twenty-six years she remembers his face, saw it in her dreams.

"I'm a forensic artist," I tell her casually, though my mind's racing and my heart's thumping away.

"So Johnny said. He said you've been making drawings at the Foster trial."

"Following the case?"

Kate shrugs. "Doesn't interest me much. But I did watch ABC a couple nights just to see your work. Pretty good. Made me feel like I was there."

"Eyewitness drawings are my specialty," I tell her. "The courtroom work a sideline."

She nods politely.

"Would you be willing to work with me on a sketch of the Flamingo shooter?"

She shrugs, again shows her restrained half-smile. "It's been such a long while."

Though my heart's still pounding, I try my best to appear cool. Having stumbled into this one-in-a-million opportunity, I warn myself not to blow it.

"Your girlfriend's watching us." She says the words so softly that for a moment I don't react. Then I glance up to find Pam leaning over the balcony gazing down on us, curious.

"Hi!" I wave to her.

Pam hesitates, then unenthusiastically waves back.

I introduce them. "Pam—this is Kate. Pam's a reporter for CNN," I tell Kate. "Kate owns the joint," I call up to Pam.

Kate calls up to her. "Wanna swim? I can loan you guys suits."

Her offer seems to melt Pam's frost. "Great kids," she says, indicating Kate's boys. Then she starts toward the stairs.

Kate turns to me. She speaks very softly but with an intensity she hasn't used before.

"Call me in a couple days. If I decide to work with you, it'd be just the two of us, okay?"

"S
exy little number back there," Pam says. "Blondes like her don't take well to the sun. Couple more years of it she'll start looking like a prune."

We're in my car driving back toward the city, having declined Kate Evans's offer of a swim.

"Are you being catty?"

"She was flirting with you, David."

"She says she saw the killer. She was in the pool during the shootings. Their eyes met when he ran out."

"Okay, that's a different story. Will she work with you?"

"She's going to think about it. It's a real
longshot
. I don't know of a case where a witness recalled a face after twenty-six years. Even Holocaust survivors. Some, who were able to identify their abusers in court years after the fact, couldn't assist with forensic sketches prior to trial."

"If she saw him, I know you'll come up with a face."

Something about the way she touches me then, touches my arm, the smile on her face as she does it, makes me want to open up to her.

I pull over to the side of the road.

"When we were at the Fulraine house, you said something that really hit me," I tell her.

"About Barbara not wanting to defile the house?"

"Yes . . . because, you said, that's where the kidnapping took place. I was there twice actually. I told you about Mark's tenth birthday party, but I was also there for his seventh. That's when I saw Belle with Becky, the English au pair, the one who took her, whose torso later washed up on the beach."

Pam is studying me now, her face creased with interest.

"I didn't take much notice of them. We were whooping around like typical seven-year-olds and they were kinda watching from the fringes. But then I wandered into the house to find a bathroom, and that's when I saw them, heard them actually . . . through an upstairs bathroom door. Becky had one of those British accents that's hard to understand unless you're used to it, so I'm not sure I heard exactly what she said. But her tone was clear. She was balling Belle out. 'You'll do what I say, understand, Missy?'—something like that. And Belle protesting: 'But Mommy says not to do that—it's wrong!' Then a sharp sound like a slap, then Belle crying out in pain. I remember cowering back, upset. Then I heard Becky say something like, 'Now wipe your face,
dearie
, we're going back outside.' Belle was still whimpering. Then Becky said, 'Come on,
dearie
. It's not as bad as all that. We'll go out for a drive, meet Ted, have some ice cream—' or maybe she said 'Ed' or 'Ned' or some similar name. To which Belle said something like, 'They're going to serve ice cream here. Cake too.' 'Well, then we'll have ice cream twice, nothing wrong with that, is there? And it'll be better this time with Ted'—or whomever. 'This time you'll like it, Belle, you'll see.' "

"Jesus!"

"Yeah! Still chills me to the bone. Anyway, when I heard them coming out, I ran into a bedroom and hid
there
till they passed by the door. Then I went into the bathroom to do my business. I remember there was some Kleenex or something in the toilet, which, of course, I flushed away." I meet Pam's eyes. "That was the day they disappeared, while Mark's seventh birthday party was going on in the garden. I may have been the last person to 'see' them that afternoon."

"Oh, David. . .," she moans.

"They never returned from wherever they went and by the next morning it was all over school—Belle Fulraine and the Fulraines' English au pair were missing and there may have been a kidnapping, though that wasn't clear yet and never would be since there never was a ransom note or even a call. They found the car
Becky'd
used in a shopping center parking lot a mile away. After that, till Becky's torso washed up, it was like they disappeared off the face of the earth.

"I told my parents what I'd overheard, and of course they called the cops. A tough, old Irish detective came out to the house. I went over it again and again with him, my parents sitting beside me on the couch. He kept asking me questions, circling my story, poking around at it for holes: 'You never really saw anything, did you?' 'If you hid, how could you have seen them pass by the door?' Questions like that. I guess I started to cry because at one point my father stepped in and stopped the interview and the detective said something like, 'Well, doctor, I'm sure you can understand we have to make sure the boy's not fibbing to attract attention.' My father said, 'My son doesn't lie!' The detective raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and shortly after that he left.